How SEO can increase your online reach as a musician
Search engine optimization (SEO) includes identifying your audience, creating a landing page, and using keywords so current and new fans can find you with a few clicks.
by Lauren Davish of Disc Makers Blog
Getting your music out into the world is one thing, but getting people to notice you is no small task. Luckily, there are plenty of tools that can help interested listeners find you. SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the most vital components of your digital marketing strategy.
The impact of SEO on online visibility and music promotion runs pretty deep. Prioritizing SEO on your website, social media platforms, and streaming services like Spotify and YouTube will help you gain more visibility for your current and new fans. SEO for musicians is a big deal, and you should use it to boost your music career and get in front of the right fans.
What’s SEO and why is it significant in the music industry?
Search engine optimization involves strategically implementing content online in order to make it “searchable” by search engines, like Google. It includes utilizing relevant keywords and metadata on your artist website and social media platforms and everywhere your music lives online.
Music metadata is another important factor to consider when uploading new releases to streaming platforms. Properly adding this information can make your music easier to identify and promote, which can impact getting on playlists and reaching new listeners.
Think about what we do for every idea or question we have: we Google it. This applies to music, as well. And yes, while the Internet is packed with endless information, using SEO in your digital marketing strategy helps you to claim your space in the online world when someone uses a search term that relates to you and your music.
For example, using SEO ensures that your artist/project name shows up when a user enters it in the search bar. Or, if you have a show or tour coming up, SEO helps to promote your upcoming events and ultimately keeps your fans in the know. Essentially, SEO keeps you connected to your current fans, helps new fans find you, and helps your music career continue to grow.
SEO goals for musicians
So, how do you make SEO work for you? Start by getting to know who you want to reach and why you want to reach them, aka, your audience and your goals.
Identify your target audience
Understanding who you think will listen to your music is one of the foundations of having SEO work for you. Start by looking at who is already listening to your music. What’s their general age range and demographic? What are their other interests and musical preferences? Your keyword research should be informed by your audience’s behavior so you appear in search results that draw in the right people.
By getting a clear picture of your current and future fans wanting to find new music(your target audience), you can create an SEO strategy that helps your music get to the right listeners.
Define achievable SEO objectives
Once you know who your audience is, you can start to outline specific, measurable goals to connect with them. Common goals with SEO for musicians might include:
- Increasing website traffic
- Improving search engine rankings for specific keywords
- Growing your social media following
By getting super clear on your audience and outlining your objectives, you’re creating a roadmap to even more success in the digital space as a musician. Now, let’s look at how you do that with SEO.
Optimize your music SEO and website
Optimizing your online space involves two basic components: keywords and content.
Keyword optimization for musicians
Optimizing your content always starts with using the right SEO keywords, and the first keyword to optimize is your artist/band name. Optimizing your name in your content means making it so that if you have a band name that doesn’t sound like a band name, it’s still searchable.
For example, my band is called Quick Chills. If you just type “quick chills” into the Google search bar, it comes up as a symptom of an illness — not quite the results we’re looking for. However, if you type “quick chills band” or “quick chills music,” there we are!
That’s because we’ve implemented the terms “music” and “band” after our name on our platforms. Our domain is quickchillsmusic.com (domain name counts for keywords, too!). Our biographies everywhere state that we’re a band and play music. But “quick chills” is too broad a term for Google’s search results to automatically recognize as just a band, so be sure to support your name with what you are, if necessary.
Once you optimize your name, you’ll want to look at other SEO keywords or phrases that define your band: What genre of music do you play? What subgenres does your sound fall under? Who do you sound like? This will help you to implement other keywords into your website, bio, and social media content.
Content creation and management
This starts with your website. Every musician should have a website to directly engage with fans and get your online music store at Position One. SEO tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you better understand what your fans care about, further guiding your music marketing strategies. However, if you want to start dominating the search pages, you must have content on your site.
Let’s break it down page by page:
Homepage
Your website’s homepage serves as the snapshot to your music world. It should display your brand clearly and include your name and a tagline that includes relevant keywords. Additionally, you’ll want to be sure that your page is user-friendly — a clean, visually appealing site encourages user engagement (visitors on your site scrolling, clicking, and staying on a page), which helps your ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
About page
This page provides your fans with a better understanding of who you are, your journey with music, and how they can relate to you beyond your songs. In terms of SEO for musicians, this page offers more opportunities to integrate keywords that reflect who you are as an artist. And if your story is engaging, it keeps users on the page for a longer period of time, further optimizing the content for search engines.
Music catalog
Having a page solely dedicated to your albums and singles gives the user landing on your page clear direction, plus you can sell your music directly online here. Additionally, optimizing each release with detailed descriptions, lyrics, and any inspiration behind the song will give you opportunities to create and share more relevant content.
Tour/events page
Be sure to include location-specific keywords for your tour dates and events. Provide detailed descriptions, including ticket information and venue details and links. This keeps your fans informed while also encouraging engagement (clicks, scrolling) on the site.
Blog/news section
Keep your listeners in the know with a blog/news page. You can write about topics related to your own music or look at some trending topics related to your genre and write a post with your take. Blogs are a great place to incorporate keywords naturally to boost your SEO.
Videos
Search engines scan videos for content now more than ever. You can typically embed videos right from YouTube on your website. Be sure to optimize the titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords. You could also consider creating transcripts for accessibility and improved SEO.
Fan testimonials/reviews
SEO is certainly about content, but as the Internet gets larger and more saturated, search engines are making sure that websites are legitimate, and reviews help! Fan reviews and testimonials not only increase relevant content on your site, but they tell search engines that you’re the real deal and not a scammer.
Content creation on your artist/band website goes a long way, and once you have your list of keywords, they get easier to implement as you go along.
Advanced SEO strategies for musicians
Content is key in SEO, but there are other advanced tactics you can use once you’ve got your content optimized.
Technical SEO: Tags and backlinks
SEO is always evolving, the Google algorithm is always updating and deciding what’s important and what’s not in terms of optimization, but optimizing tags on your website is still an advanced SEO tactic that works. Tags play a vital role in showing search engines what your site is all about so that you can rank higher in the SERPs.
By optimizing tags — which include title tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags for images — you’re telling search engines more about your site, helping your current and future listeners find you quickly and easily.
Another technical SEO strategy is to build a strong backlink profile. Backlinks, in the SEO world, are links that point from one website to another. They are another source of credibility and authority that search engines are scouting for, and the more high-quality backlinks you have, the better.
You can obtain high-quality backlinks through:
- Guest blogging on another musician’s or music blogger’s page
- Collaborating with other musicians and cross-promoting
- Creating a killer blog post that gets reshared on other high-quality sites
- Submitting to music directories
- Sharing your content on social media
- Offering testimonials to brands or platforms you genuinely use and enjoy
Integrating SEO with social media
SEO includes social media — it’s a marketing hub for all businesses and your band and music career is no different. If you’re not already on the socials, start by looking at which platform feels best for you. Is it Instagram for sharing photos, reels, and captions? YouTube or TikTok for video content? Facebook for sharing events and updates?
Your choice in social media platforms should align with the target audience you’ve identified. Where do your listeners hang out? Once you decide where you want to be online, you can integrate your keywords into your captions, title tags, profile, bio, usernames, and hashtags.
Additionally, you can create links back to your website, event tickets, and music releases. Be sure to include your social media links on your website, as well, for a more seamless integration.
Overall, SEO may seem like a daunting task and just one more thing to do on the business end of your music career, but once you begin implementing it, it starts to become easier and feel more natural. Give yourself time to come up with a strategy that aligns with your goals, and then take it one step at a time.
